


The Gladdest Thing Under the Sun

by tackytiger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: BAMF Neville Longbottom, Blood and Injury, Hogwarts, M/M, Post-Hogwarts, Threesome - M/M/M, minor drarry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-23 00:42:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18538798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tackytiger/pseuds/tackytiger
Summary: "Neville and Charlie had been friends for long enough that he knew exactly how Charlie fought, and how he fucked. He knew he could have taken Charlie home if he wanted to - he had seen enough of Charlie’s conquests to know that he was Charlie’s type, and he had drunk and danced and laughed with Charlie enough to feel the flare and heat of his interest."Or: Neville wants Charlie for good, not just for the night.





	The Gladdest Thing Under the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't intend to write another Neville fic, but here he is again! He is persistent.
> 
> This is mostly fluff but there is a minor mention of past injuries/ blood. We also touch on a threesome (ooh-er) and there are brief references to past relationships. And I use the word fuck a few times. Proceed if you wish!
> 
> Written for the Growing Neville Minifest 2019.
> 
> Title is from Edna St Vincent Millay.

It’s not that Neville is unlucky in love, as such. 

He’s been a celebrity in the wizarding community since that blasted seventh year in Hogwarts. He and Gin and Luna and the others had spent their days baiting the Carrows, and their nights jammed shoulder to shoulder in the Room of Requirement. They passed the time absorbing each other’s shudders in the aftermath of too many Cruciatus curses, and smelling the tang of each other’s blood. 

It didn’t feel glamorous or exciting at the time, and the memory of that year hasn’t improved with age, but Nev’s found that people love a hero. He can understand how people might think he fits the brief - Nev _was_ the one to cut off the head of an enormous cursed snake with the Sword of Gryffindor, after all. Though it didn’t feel very heroic, standing sweating and gasping, splattered with snake guts and swallowing down the bile that came with battle. 

Luckily, the official Ministry commemorative poster had left out the gore and the vomiting, and focused more on the breadth of Neville’s shoulders and the startling blue of his narrowed eyes, so that definitely contributed to his pulling power.

The trouble was, Nev was a gardener at heart. Nature was in his nature - he  was in tune with the slow unfurling of the seasons, with the need for commitment to a process far out of his control. Nothing in a garden is immediate; the process is the reward. And Neville wanted to love in the same way - he didn’t want the instant gratification of a bouquet of cut flowers. He wanted to plant seeds, to watch them flourish with the right care; he wanted to be there for the tentative first buds, for the inexorable impulse towards growth; he wanted to reap the benefits of patience and gentleness and _time well spent_.

Charlie Weasley was not a patient man. His work (and often, his life) depended on fast and decisive action, quick thinking, and a reliance on intuition. He spent his days literally playing with fire, for Merlin’s sake. Neville had wanted him for years, but he didn’t fancy joining the line of notches on Charlie’s (understandably, have you _seen_ him?) well-used bedpost. Facing down Alecto Carrow’s wand while blinking away runnels of his own blood had left Neville with a strong sense of self-worth, and he didn’t feel like denying himself what he wanted, or compromising on how he would get it.

He knew how people perceived Charlie. He had seen Charlie fighting Death Eaters without a sliver of hesitance -  eyes ablaze, teeth bared, wand hand a blur, magic crackling around him like a spitting fire. He had seen Charlie sweat-soaked and laughing, leaving the dancefloor pressed tight between two men, only to have forgotten their names by his next trip home. He and Charlie had been friends for long enough that he knew exactly how Charlie fought, and how he fucked. He knew he could have taken Charlie home if he wanted to - he had seen enough of Charlie’s conquests to know that he was Charlie’s type, and he had drunk and danced and laughed with Charlie enough to feel the flare and heat of his interest. 

It would probably have been easy, but Neville wasn’t sure that anything easy was ever really worth much. He wanted to put the work in.

He wanted Charlie Weasley, but he also knew _how_ he wanted Charlie Weasley. 

He wanted the Charlie Weasley he had seen when he visited the dragon sanctuary in Romania - the Charlie who spent months with his fierce magic tamped down and his hands gentle, gaining the trust of skittish new dragons; he wanted the Charlie who took five hours to painstakingly and precisely stitch the gaping slash in the wing of a frightened young dragon whelp who had been attacked by a Snallygaster; he wanted the Charlie who had worked tirelessly for years to gain the respect and trust of his team. 

No, Neville knew that he didn’t just want Charlie as a raging inferno - the Charlie that other people got. He wanted Charlie as a banked fire. He wanted to protect the slow smoulder and kindle the embers, as well as bask in the heat. He wanted to take his time with Charlie.

First, he put in the spadework. He spoke about Charlie to his friends, fondly and often. He asked the various Weasleys enough questions that they started elbowing him and waggling eyebrows whenever Charlie’s name came up. 

People were _noticing_ , so it was working.

Ginny spent nights out relentlessly shoving them together on the dancefloor, winking behind Charlie’s back and making lascivious hand gestures in a hopeful manner. Draco and Harry, who had each fucked Charlie separately, and once together, were loud in their praises and staunch in their encouragement. But Neville was in no rush.

He spent months cultivating Charlie’s attention. Balmy spring rolled into hazy summer, and Nev turned up at the Burrow whenever Charlie was home. He was casual enough to seem natural, joining in the with rollicking chaos of family barbeques, degnoming drives, and even the odd Quidditch game. But he was serious enough to draw attention to himself. He allowed people to see him watching Charlie. He went out of his way to press himself thigh-to-thigh against Charlie at mealtimes; he was frank in the way he tilted his body towards Charlie when they did the washing up; he allowed himself the barest graze of lips against skin when he whispered in Charlie’s ear. 

Charlie is a Weasley - he’s used to being loved, but it’s always been a slightly absent-minded, distracted love, a love that has to be shared out between many. He didn't quite know what to do with the full blast of Neville’s focus on him - he was intrigued, and flustered, and _interested_.

During the last days of August, when the days seem endless and heat stretches languidly into the evening, Neville went to help Molly in her garden. He was just there for the tugging and hauling, really - gardening in the Burrow is mainly a matter of using brute force to tame and neaten. He was already flushed and sweating by the time Charlie flooed in for the weekend, and joined them in the garden. He was sun-burnished and graceful and so beautiful, and he stood so close that Neville could see the uneven flutter of his pulse in the dip of his throat. Neville watched as Charlie’s eyes dropped helplessly to Neville’s bare chest, then stomach, then back up to his mouth. They stood in silence, just looking at each other, and when Neville asked Charlie if he’d join everyone for drinks that evening, Charlie had to wet his lips before he answered, “Yes, please.”

That night at the club, Charlie is different. He is still brazen and exuberant, but he can’t seem to keep his eyes off the column of Neville’s throat as Nev sips his drink. When they sit, he presses himself into the curve of Neville’s arm, so that Nev can feel the tantalising ridge of Charlie’s collar bone at his fingertips. The silence between them is warm and expectant and strangely peaceful. 

They watch as Harry and Draco pretend to dance. Within five minutes, Draco has a hand in Harry’s hair and has bared Harry’s throat for the path of his mouth with a tug that looks almost painful. Harry’s eyes are shut, sooty lashes flickering and mouth open on a gasp, before he gathers Draco to him and Apparates them both right out of the crowded dancefloor. 

Neville and Charlie catch eyes as they each roll theirs, half-laughing and half-exasperated. Charlie clears his throat a little self-consciously.

“Do you ever wish things had worked out with Draco?”

Neville almost laughs, but just in time he catches on Charlie’s face the slight tilt of the chin and set of the mouth that tells him that his answer to this is going to be important. 

He explains, then. He tells Charlie how Draco was his first fuck, his first kiss with a man, even. But even then, he had known how Draco felt about Harry. He could see in Draco and Harry the same steadfast and intense focus that Neville wanted from a relationship. He and Draco could never have felt like that for each other, but they had helped each other to recognise and understand the way they wanted to love other people.

“Will you stay with me, Charlie?” he asks then.

Neville keeps his eyes forward, but he presses the pads of his fingers against Charlie’s clavicle so that he can feel the intake of breath in the moment when Charlie realises what he’s really asking. It’s only when he hears Charlie answer, “Yes,” that he allows himself to gentle the touch into a caress.

They don’t Apparate out, vibrating with urgency and unresolved tension. Instead, they stand together and walk through the club to the door. They say goodbye to their friends, they reach easily for each other’s hands as they go. Neville wants to be seen.

That night, they take things slowly. Or rather, Neville takes Charlie slowly. He lingers overlong on the velvet of Charlie’s freckled inner thighs, nuzzling and grazing the tender skin until it is the exact pink of the inside of Charlie’s lower lip. He drags his tongue along the slope of Charlie’s ribcage so reverently that Charlie is shaking long before Neville reaches the hollow of his hipbone. Before he draws Charlie’s cock into his mouth, he laps at the slit so thoroughly that Charlie whimpers helplessly. 

By the time he allows himself the luxury of the slow suck and drag of Charlie’s cock in his mouth, he has to hold Charlie down by the hips to keep him still. When Charlie is pinned under the press of Neville’s hands, Neville feels his groan bone-deep. 

Charlie comes grasping Neville’s forearms like he’s being pitched from a broom.

The next day, Neville rolls up his sleeves so that everyone at work can see the bloom of bruises where Charlie’s fingertips have been. He kneels to his weeding, and watches the bruises move with the flex and roll of his muscles. 

That evening, he goes to dinner at the Burrow. He sits next to Charlie, passes him the mashed potato and pours him some wine. He watches Percy’s eyes widen when Neville touches his thumb, just briefly, to the slightly swollen edge of Charlie’s mouth. 

He keeps his sleeves rolled up.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr! I love new friends

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] The Gladdest Thing Under the Sun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20871011) by [keyflight790](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keyflight790/pseuds/keyflight790)




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